My thoughts. Russia is in deep trouble with the ladies. They will only have two for the Olympics and maybe none in the gpf. Piseev et al must be panicking, piss mad and perturbed! Murakami I like her perkiness a lot but I do sometimes wonder about the jumps though they look good. Korpi was the best here though not by much over Gracie. I thought Gracie might pull through. I just wish our gold medallist could do a little more in the jumping. Leonova must be in tears. Her placement here suggests she would be like 16th at worlds or so. The Russian youngsters need to really work on controlling their nerves, maintaining good technique on the jumps and developing a good, a strong and an elegant and expressive approach to their skating. There is potential but instead of a lot of superstars like Japan (men right now especially) they have a lot of hopefuls and unfulfilled talent - Makarova, the baby B's Tut, Lip, Sotnikova, Polinas and then what do you do with Leonova - none of them have stepped up to the plate to take charge.

Korpi was solid - almost as usual - never totally brilliant but always pretty, good presence on the ice, some triples, some nice spins and decent ice coverage and speed. Poor Murakmi the Susan Lucci of figure skating:(

It was really missing the 2A in her 3F sequence that cost Murakami the bronze. I really dislike her FS layout, it's high risk/high reward, but IMO, not worth it. The 3loop is not a great jump for her, and the callers have called both of her second loops UR in both of her GPs. Having only one double axel is okay, but having it as the second element in a sequence is dangerous for the reason we saw here today--her 3F was shaky and she didn't do the axel. Since the axel is a required element, the triple toe was voided as if it never happened. And her FS layout ridiculously doesn't allow her to attempt her eye-catching 3T/3T.

My thoughts. Russia is in deep trouble with the ladies. They will only have two for the Olympics and maybe none in the gpf. Piseev et al must be panicking, piss mad and perturbed! Murakami I like her perkiness a lot but I do sometimes wonder about the jumps though they look good. Korpi was the best here though not by much over Gracie. I thought Gracie might pull through. I just wish our gold medallist could do a little more in the jumping. Leonova must be in tears. Her placement here suggests she would be like 16th at worlds or so. The Russian youngsters need to really work on controlling their nerves, maintaining good technique on the jumps and developing a good, a strong and an elegant and expressive approach to their skating. There is potential but instead of a lot of superstars like Japan (men right now especially) they have a lot of hopefuls and unfulfilled talent - Makarova, the baby B's Tut, Lip, Sotnikova, Polinas and then what do you do with Leonova - none of them have stepped up to the plate to take charge.

Korpi was solid - almost as usual - never totally brilliant but always pretty, good presence on the ice, some triples, some nice spins and decent ice coverage and speed. Poor Murakmi the Susan Lucci of figure skating:(

I thought Lipnitskaia looked fine at Cup of China last weekend--two flubs in the FS proved that all nerves can (and will) fray. And what better place for it to happen than at your first GP event? Just wait and see if her defeat doesn't motivate her to completely and utterly dominate the field at TEB. She was p*ssed that she lost to Mao.

Who's "our" gold medalist? Gracie? For the record, I thought she was confident from the beginning of her FS, and she would've won had she not flubbed those jumps. At least we know she has the technical aspect of the competition covered, double-checked, and covered again. What she needs to focus on from now until Nats is the artistic aspect, especially interpretation. She could do beautiful (haha) things with her FS.

I'm cutting Tukta some slack until she's recovered from injury and gets used to her body changes. I speak from experience when I say that it's a real struggle.

Leonova's poor showing only founds my fear that she's having some serious consistency issues. She may be a late bloomer like Kostner, but if so then she's running out of time to prove it. Russia will probably put her on its Worlds team since Lipnitskaia is age-ineligible this season, but at this point they're probably scratching her name from the list of potential representatives at Sochi.

I'm most worried about Sotnikova and the fact that she doesn't know what happened with her triple flip in the SP. To me, that suggests a technical detail that has somehow been overlooked--otherwise, she would've said "I was nervous" or "I got ahead of myself and didn't focus on the element"--and that is a huge warning bell that she and her coach need to get back to the drawing board and see where exactly she lost that jump. She just hasn't had too illustrious of a season yet (no clean FS in 18 months) --losing to Wagner and Gao at SA, and now Murakami, Zawadzki, Gold, and Korpi at CoR. The best that can be said for her CoR FS is that she was clearly nervous from the start. It's terribly sad that so many people had her projected as the CoR champion only for her to fail to deliver. At this rate she probably won't make the GPF.

My thoughts. Russia is in deep trouble with the ladies. They will only have two for the Olympics and maybe none in the gpf. Piseev et al must be panicking, piss mad and perturbed! Murakami I like her perkiness a lot but I do sometimes wonder about the jumps though they look good. Korpi was the best here though not by much over Gracie. I thought Gracie might pull through. I just wish our gold medallist could do a little more in the jumping. Leonova must be in tears. Her placement here suggests she would be like 16th at worlds or so. The Russian youngsters need to really work on controlling their nerves, maintaining good technique on the jumps and developing a good, a strong and an elegant and expressive approach to their skating. There is potential but instead of a lot of superstars like Japan (men right now especially) they have a lot of hopefuls and unfulfilled talent - Makarova, the baby B's Tut, Lip, Sotnikova, Polinas and then what do you do with Leonova - none of them have stepped up to the plate to take charge.

probbaly right at the Olympics but you mean this season GPF ? julia has silver, she will still qualify even with a bronze or 4th at TEB, she can even win gold there
I like her drive, she has motivation , those screen flashes that she was very pissed after the FS result that she was 2nd to Mao, Julia wants to win !

My thoughts. Russia is in deep trouble with the ladies. They will only have two for the Olympics and maybe none in the gpf.

I don't agree. Tuk and Julia are in good form and I fully expect Leonova to be back to her best by the 2nd half of the season. Moreover, Polina K put in a much better performance today in her FS. The only skater that has a real problem is Sotnikova. It should also be noted that it has been through the performances of Leonova and Makarova over the last 2 seasons that they have been getting their 3 spots for Worlds. They have a stronger squad this season

As for the GPF, I fully anticipate that both Julia and Tuk will qualify for it.

I don't agree. Tuk and Julia are in good form and I fully expect Leonova to be back to her best by the 2nd half of the season. Moreover, Polina K put in a much better performance today. The only skater that has a real problem is Sotnikova

I don't agree. Tuk and Julia are in good form and I fully expect Leonova to be back to her best by the 2nd half of the season. Moreover, Polina K put in a much better performance today in her FS. The only skater that has a real problem is Sotnikova. It should also be noted that it has been through the performances of Leonova and Makarova over the last 2 seasons that they have been getting their 3 spots for Worlds.

Tukta is struggling with weight gain from puberty right now. At the moment, I would say that Adelina and Julia are in better shape. Polina is still a dark horse, Leonova will have an uphill struggle if she hopes to prove that they can't count her out just yet, and Adelina needs to fix whatever is preventing that 3F before it wrecks her at Russian Nats.